I find it pertinent to note that Dr. Jones has been romantically linked to countless women of questionable character, an attribute very unbecoming of a Marshall College professor. One of these women was identified as a notorious nightclub singer whose heart he attempted to extract with his hands, and whom he then tried, and failed, to lower into a lake of magma. Another was a Nazi scholar he was seen courting just last year who, I’m told, plummeted into a fathomless abyss at Dr. Jones’s hand.

“A high percentage of our politicians say Missouruh,” mused Lyle Anderson, the mayor of Lebanon, who prefers the other construction.

Such politicians include, historically, President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, and more recently, former Senators John Ashcroft and Christopher S. Bond, both Republicans. Today, most of the state’s top officials stick mostly to “Missouree,” but they sprinkle the other ending into the occasional speech, especially when they’re introducing themselves or speaking to rural audiences. Strategists say that’s just good Missouri manners.

Some sharp analysis on why Apple succeeds. Occasionally they’re the first with an idea, but most often they just do things better than those already doing them. My question: if that’s true, then how well does that lesson travel beyond consumer goods? Is the same thing true, say, of academic scholarship? {via DF}

This may seem like something out of a science fiction movie: researchers have designed microparticles that can be injected directly into the bloodstream to quickly oxygenate your body, even if you cant breathe anymore… The invention, developed by a team at Boston Childrens Hospital, will allow medical teams to keep patients alive and well for 15 to 30 minutes despite major respiratory failure.

Incredible. It could save lives. It could have saved the ending of Sherlock Holmes 2.

“French people have an uncomfortable relationship with money,” Mr. Grandil said. “Here, someone who is a self-made man, creating jobs and ending up as a millionaire, is viewed with suspicion. This is big cultural difference between France and the United States.”

As corporate membership on the board has increased, so, too, has the number of nonorganic materials approved for organic foods on what is called the National List. At first, the list was largely made up of things like baking soda, which is nonorganic but essential to making things like organic bread. Today, more than 250 nonorganic substances are on the list, up from 77 in 2002.

Today, we have our own fads. We’re more likely to hear about using nouns as verbs – structure a lesson, impact a discussion – or making new verbs from nouns, such as liaise. Yet the verbs copy, view, worship and silence were born from nouns to no complaint. The fashion simply hadn’t yet arisen to condemn them. Or, for that matter, no fuss was made at the time when William Shakespeare and William Makepeace Thackeray, both celebrated as masters of the tongue, used they in the singular form.

The transition to “they” can’t happen fast enough. Good enough for Chaucer, good enough for me.

Talents are costly to develop, and we refuse to socialize these costs. To be an outstanding student requires not just smarts and dedication but a well-supported school, a safe, comfortable home and leisure time to cultivate the self. These are not widely available. When some students struggle, they can later tell the story of their triumph over adversity, often without mentioning the helping hand of a tutor. Other students simply fail without such expensive aids.

We usually think of having more money as allowing us to buy more and more of the stuff we like for ourselves, from bigger houses to fancier cars to better wine to more finely pixilated televisions. But these typical spending tendencies — buying more, and buying for ourselves — are ineffective at turning money into happiness. A decade of research has demonstrated that if you insist on spending money on yourself, you should shift from buying stuff TVs and cars to experiences trips and special evenings out. Our own recent research shows that in addition to buying more experiences, you’re better served in many cases by simply buying less — and buying for others.